So long, Doug
by MedicOnDuty
Summary: Jim Gutterman stood in the operations' shack on Vella La Cava and stared at the small black speck on an aerial photograph of nearby Kolombangara island. A speck that he knows were the remains of Doug Rafferty's Corsair and, by extension, of Doug Rafferty himself. It just didn't seem right that the boy would never get a proper funeral.


**2 December 1943**

James Gutterman stood in the olive-drab painted wooden shack that served as the operations building on Vella La Cava and screwed up his face in the dim light cast onto him from a single bulb hanging above the desk with an equally olive-drab funnel-shaped cover. He was looking intently at a map of the Solomon Islands and a number of photos Boyle had recently taken on a fly-over of Kolombangara, the large, nearly circular island that lay south-east of Vella La Cava and that had, until recently, been a major Japanese stronghold.

For all intents and purposes, it seemed as if the Japanese had packed up most of their belongings and quietly snuck off the island at some point between their last fly-over and this more recent one, although you could never be quite sure whether a garrison remained, at least not from the air. It was always possible that they were simply trying to make it look as if they'd left to lay an ambush for a possible invasion that had been on the Marines' to-do list in the Solomons for some weeks.

But Jim's interest in this jungle- and possibly Japanese-covered island had little to do with all of that. No, his interest sprung from something much closer to home: it was the island on which Doug Rafferty's Corsair had crashed on September thirtieth.

…

**30 September 1943**

The dark-blue Corsairs of the Black Sheep were flying in a loose formation, heading back toward Vella La Cava after a bomber escort mission to Rabaul. It hadn't been a good mission. Although all of the bombers had safely made it to their target, the Black Sheep had lost Deke Stubbins, one of their own, when they met with enemy aircraft twenty minutes from the bombers' target, the Japanese stronghold most of their missions were to these days and which was blocking the entire Allied advance from making it to Japan before Christmas. Accordingly, their mood was subdued and while there ordinarily was a fair amount of radio chatter, it was quiet that afternoon and everyone kept to themselves, keeping an eye on the gages on their instrument panels and the skies around them.

Pappy had just given them their new heading, west toward Vella La Cava instead of straight down the Slot, the direction in which they had been flying, when Boyle spotted a number of Japanese fighters far below them, skimming along in formation set for some target down the line, maybe for Espritos Marcos, maybe one of the other airfields or supply bases along the way.

"Pappy, there's six Zekes down there," Boyle said again, with a little more urgency this time since his first warning had elicited no response.

"I heard you the first time, Boyle," came Pappy's response over the radio. "Leave them alone."

"You can't be serious, Greg!" Jim protested.

"Listen, you meatheads!" Pappy's voice responded over their head sets. "I told you to leave them alone and that's an order. We don't have the fuel or the ammo to tangle with them and you know our standing order from headquarters – we're to leave those new carrier-based fighters alone. We're outclassed. We're going to climb to 25,000 and keep on our heading. If we're spotted, maybe we'll get lucky and can outrun them to Vella La Cava."

Jim curled his lip. "That sounds an awful lot like running away, Greg!"

"Jim, will you shut up and for once in your life do what you're told!"

Just as Jim was about to respond to what he perceived as a personal insult from his commander, he saw Doug Rafferty's plane roll onto its right wing and dip down sharply to go after the flight of enemy planes.

"Goddamnit, Rafferty, I said leave them alone!" Pappy yelled with more than a hint of annoyance. He knew _why _his boys weren't listening – heck, if he were them, he probably wouldn't either – but that didn't change the facts. He knew they didn't have a chance. Otherwise he would have been the first one to jump those Zekes. "Rafferty, get back here!"

When no response came from Rafferty and his aircraft continued to lose altitude and close on those Zekes, Gutterman followed. Then Boyle. Then French. Then T.J. Even Casey looked apologetically toward Pappy's aircraft before dropping altitude and following suit. Pappy cursed to himself and followed his boys into a battle he knew they couldn't win. Their Corsairs were already running low on fuel and ammo, while the enemy's were fresh off a carrier and on the way to their target, rather than on the way back. What's more, these birds were equipped with armor, making them difficult targets even on the best of days and with fresh stores of ammo. But he knew his Black Sheep would hold their own even when the odds were against them.

They did, of course.

In the aerial battle that ensued, flashes of blue Corsairs and silver Zekes went every which way, making it hard to keep track of who was following whom, who was getting shot at, who was doing the shooting. And Rafferty was right in the middle of things. He had something to prove. He needed to prove that he wasn't just "Admiral Rafferty's kid" and he definitely needed to prove that he wasn't going to let this squadron down. After all, this squadron had accepted him as just another fighter pilot, even though they knew who his father was and even though they knew about his reputation of being "bad luck." Being thought of bad luck was a death nail for a fighter pilot, and although it had caused some issues with the Black Sheep once the rumor had spread, they had eventually accepted him. And now wasn't the time he would have them convinced otherwise.

A plume of smoke sputtered into life from the Zeke in front of his Corsair as Rafferty's six machine guns ripped into the enemy fighter's fuselage and he would have cheered in victory except he heard Jim's voice over his head set, "Rafferty! Get out of there! You've got one on your six!"

As Doug pushed the stick to his left and down, trying to pull away from the enemy plane, he could hear the rounds from the Zeke's 20mm cannons rip into his aircraft. Actually, it was more that he could _feel _them rip into his aircraft: the entire Corsair shuddered as pieces were ripped from its wing and tail, making her difficult to handle.

"Rafferty, watch out!" T.J. shouted.

_Sure, watch out, _Rafferty thought as he feverishly tried to maneuver his Corsair out of range of the faster Japanese fighter that was still on his tail, doing its best to send him into the ocean below. _What the hell do they think I'm doing? Sitting here, waiting to get killed?_ Rafferty rolled to the right and another slew of rounds just barely missed, the red tracers being a visual reminder of just how close they had been. He tried to pull up sharply, quickly gaining altitude, and for a second thought he'd made it, that he'd outmaneuvered the Japanese aircraft, when rounds tore into his cockpit. _Shit. Maybe I am bad luck! _He saw the neat holes in the side of his fuselage and then noticed the blood spreading down his front. He was surprised it wasn't painful. Then his brain began to understand what had happened. _Oh, fucking hell._

"Rafferty!"

It was Jim Gutterman's voice that came over his head set. _Fitting_, he thought. _Jim Gutterman had yelled at him when he'd set foot on Vella La Cava to join the Black Sheep and now Jim was yelling at him as he was about to unceremoniously leave the squadron. _It seemed like Jim was forever yelling at him as he'd also been doing a lot of yelling after those boys in the 905th had gotten killed and it had been Rafferty's fault. But at least this time, he wasn't yelling because he was about to kick his ass but out of concern. And that was a little better, at least.

"Rafferty! Get out! You're not going to make it!"

Jim was getting more and more frantic as he followed the Corsair that was swiftly losing altitude. He'd seen Rafferty's plane get hit just as he had managed to get into position to fire at that Zeke that was causing so much trouble, and he'd watched those rounds go right into the cockpit. He was hoping like hell that Rafferty would push the canopy back any second and that he would see that white silk parachute float toward the island that was not below them. But precious seconds ticked by and nothing happened except the steady descent of the battle-scarred Corsair toward the very solid surface below.

"Come on," Jim shouted. "Get out of the fucking plane!"

But nothing happened: no parachute, no response, nothing at all. Jim, still following the other Corsair, watched in horror as she passed over the beach and crashed into the dense jungle just inland. A large black plume of smoke rose up into the sky and Doug Rafferty was gone.

…

**2 December 1943**

Jim Gutterman's index finger rested on a dark spot at the edge of one of the photographs their recon mission had brought back the previous day. A dark spot that he knew was the site where Doug Rafferty's plane was scattered into a million pieces. It was a depressing thought.

It was one thing to see a plane go into the ocean, never to be seen again, but another entirely to be able to see the wreckage, even after two months, and know that this wasn't just some speck on some island on a photo, but an aircraft he'd been so familiar with, that he had passed every day as he walked to his own bird on the flight line. And what's more, that this wasn't just pieces of an aircraft but pieces of a pilot that were sitting in that jungle. Pieces of someone he had known.

Jim wiped his eyes. _Damn dry air is making them water. _He wiped them again. _Oh, who am I kidding._ He put the photo down and poured himself a drink from the bottle he'd brought with him, into a canteen cup that was sitting on the corner of the map, holding it in place. He looked at the amber liquid and then downed the entire cup. Above his head, bugs were buzzing into the light.

Jim felt guilty about what happened to Doug Rafferty because he felt that, at least partially, he was to blame. Doug and Jim had flown together in their previous squadron, the 905th, which is where Doug had picked up his reputation as being a jinx after some of their pilots had gotten killed and Gutterman's friend, Harry Roth, had very nearly joined them – although he probably wasn't any better off being alive in a hospital back at Pearl Harbor now. After that, Jim and Doug didn't exactly part on friendly terms.

Needless to say, Jim hadn't rolled out the red carpet when Rafferty arrived on Vella La Cava to join the Black Sheep, thanks to some of Pappy's string-pulling. In fact, his words had been something to the effect of, "You're leaving – whether you leave on your own power or whether you're carried off the island under a Red Cross blanket is up to you." That had been one hell of a welcome for poor Doug who just wanted a chance to fly in a squadron where his reputation didn't precede him and where he could start from scratch.

Jim poured himself another cup from that bottle, draining what was left. There was something to be said for canteen cups. They gave a whole new meaning to the old drinker's claim of, "I'll have just the one."

After the rotten welcome he'd given Doug on his arrival to Vella La Cava, Jim had eventually swallowed his pride – something that did not come easy to him – and extended his hand to Rafferty in friendship, both figuratively and literally. Not without a bit of a push from Pappy, mind you, who'd given the entire squadron a lector about spreading rumors and believing in silly things like luck. He'd chewed them out about their stupid good luck charms, too – Bragg's lucky rabbit's foot, and Casey's four-leave clover charm among them – and they'd sure felt like ripe idiots afterward and even worse about the way they'd treated Doug. But he'd gotten the message through their heads: there was no such thing as bad luck, but you could sure give yourself bad luck if you believed in it enough.

And now that Doug Rafferty was dead, killed trying to prove he was just a good pilot and not the bad luck guy or the Admiral's kid, Jim Gutterman felt more than a little guilty about the part he'd had in the whole mess. It wasn't his fault that Doug had been shot down, of course. That was all on the Japanese. But it was at least partially his fault that Doug felt he needed to prove himself to the Black Sheep. And that was a hard pill to swallow.

He looked back at that dark spot on the aerial photograph in front of him that had once been a pilot and an aircraft and decided that this wasn't how things should end for anyone, as scattered bones on some godforsaken island. He'd never see a proper burial. And his parents, like so many thousands of parents in this war, would be told that their son was missing. Not dead, but missing. It was the War Department's way of saying, "We're sorry, we don't have the remains," but most parents understood it as, "There's a good chance he'll turn up alive one day," because the statement lacked the finality afforded by the word "dead."

_No, _Gutterman decided, _it's not going to end like that._ He felt that he owed this to Doug Rafferty, to Doug's parents, and most definitely to himself. He needed to make amends.

…

**4 December 1943**

"Pappy!"

Jim Gutterman cut into the chow line in front of _Chez Shingles_, the tent that passed as the mess hall on Vella La Cava, to get behind his squadron commander. Behind him, T.J. made a noise of dissent. Gutterman turned around to face him. They were almost the same height but Jim could be intimidating when he wanted to. He pushed his beat-up cowboy hat back. "Relax, T.J. You'll get to your powdered eggs soon enough!" he snarled. Then he turned back to Pappy, "I need to talk to you, Greg."

…

"So, let me get this straight, Jim." Pappy held up the photograph with the speck that had been Doug Rafferty's plane, which Gutterman had been waving around with his left hand for the last twenty minutes while circling the approximate location on the map of Kolombangara with his right and explaining this plan he'd come up with. Greg wondered if that planning had involved heavy amounts of drinking because it seemed like a pretty harebrained idea. "You want to take a PT boat on a cruise almost 40 miles across open water to an island that may still be inhabited by Tojo to find the remains of a pilot you couldn't stand so he can have a decent burial?"

Jim opened his mouth in protest at _couldn't stand_, but before had a chance to say anything Pappy had already cut him off. "Sounds like the kind of plan I'd come up with. How exactly are we going to pull this off?"

…

**5 December 1943**

A thick mist hung over Vella La Cava's airfield that morning because it had rained the entire previous afternoon and the whole night, and had only stopped about two hours ago. Jim knew it had been two hours because he hadn't slept a wink all night. Far from lulling him to sleep, as the pitter-patter of rain used to back home in Texas, the rain drumming on his tent's canvas had kept him wide awake. He'd felt like someone had been playing the drums on top of his head the whole night. T.J., with whom he shared a tent, meanwhile had slept like a baby, _the lucky bastard_.

Jim dragged himself back to the operation's building around four in the morning, having made a vague attempt at shaving and with his hair sticking up in every direction. He was dressed, at least. When he entered the shack, he found the other five already there and looking a lot more well-rested than he was.

"Nice of you to join us, Jim," Major Boyington quipped to lighten the mood. He gestured at the others: T.J., who had volunteered because he'd been friends with Doug, Bob Anderson, Larry Casey, who'd let himself be talked into coming along, and, for some unknown reason, Dog Corgney, their Navy flight surgeon. "Gang's all here. What time is your PT boat supposed to meet us?"

"_Us?_ Greg, you're not thinking of joining us!" Jim protested. "If this turns out to be suicide, the squadron can hardly afford to lose you."

Greg put a hand onto Jim's shoulder and began pushing him out the door and toward the beach while the others followed in their wake. "Stop being a fool, you meathead. I'm going and that's final."

The small group, dressed for the most part in the green, herringbone Marine Corps utility uniforms, squelched along through the thick mud that threatened to suck their boondockers off with each step, until they reached the wet but much more solid sand on the beach. They could already see the outline of the PT boat that was waiting for them in the water, and a small raft was making its way ashore to meet them and ferry them over.

Not long after, the PT boat they'd hired sped toward Kolombangara, some 37 miles from Vella La Cava across a relatively still open sea. The trip had cost them an entire case of the good Scotch they had been saving for a particularly tempting trade or possibly a worthwhile occasion, and everyone had agreed that this trip definitely fell under that description. Except Jim, who felt indebted to them all for not just putting up with his plan but volunteering to help in any way needed, and he had promised that he would replace the case of scotch if he were at all able to.

As the boat sped along, Jim was nervously checking his .45 pistol repeatedly, ensuring that it was in good working order in case they did encounter Japanese troops on the island, which seemed a pretty good possibility because they were headed out there in broad daylight and would likely be ashore for several hours. They needed enough time to locate the wreckage and bury Doug. Casey had even brought along a small can of paint to create a grave marker using a piece of Rafferty's aircraft, so he would not just have a burial but a proper resting place.

Jim was uncomfortable with the idea of using a piece of the aircraft as a grave marker because he doubted there would be any large enough to use, considering the speed with which the Corsair had gone down. It seemed unlikely that anything was left of the plane or the pilot at all. The more he thought about it, the worse his plan of looking for Doug's remains sounded to him.

After the longest forty-five minutes that Jim had ever spent on a boat of any kind, the PT boat slowed and then came to a stop, swaying slightly in the water with the waves that were crashing toward the beach. The six Black Sheep went onto the deck where the PT boat crew was launching the raft for them to take them to the beach, which still lay a short distance away. The idea of sitting in a raft and paddling it toward an enemy beach seemed dumber by the second to Jim, but there was no turning back now.

As they pulled the raft ashore once they'd hit the beach, Jim checked his pistol again, just to make sure. He felt paranoid and self-conscious. Then he realized everyone else was doing the same and everyone else had that same tense look on their faces that he must have been wearing. He felt a little better about the whole thing.

The group set off into the dense brush in the direction Jim remembered the aircraft to have crashed in and that they had plotted on their map of the island. They'd worked out approximately how far they had to go, and their planning was proving accurate as it only took about ten minutes before they began to see the first signs of the crash site.

It had already been more than two months since Doug Rafferty's Corsair had slammed into the trees on this side of the island, but it was easy to spot the broken tree tops and dropped branches and follow them to the crash site. And although nature was doing her very best to assimilate the aircraft into its surroundings, metal pieces could be spotted without great difficulty between the mosses and lichens that grew on the island. To Jim's big surprise, the trail of debris was smaller than he'd imagined. A very short distance after they'd spotted the first parts of the Corsair's wings, they found the cockpit, largely intact, wedged between two tall trees, partially overgrown already. Jim stopped to take a deep breath and survey the scene, and the others stopped behind him. They knew, of course, that while this mission was important to each of them, it was particularly important to Gutterman, and they were willing to let him take a minute to collect his thoughts before they went about the business of trying to recover what pieces might be left of their fellow pilot.

Jim tentatively stepped forward to the cockpit and placed his hand on the canopy, which was partially open but intact. There it was, the rusting hull that had been a proud aircraft two months earlier. He felt good about the fact that it was a tangible thing, still, and not just a vague spot on a picture. He pushed at the canopy, which wouldn't budge at first, but on his second try, it slid back.

Jim stared at the seat of the aircraft. He wasn't sure what exactly he had expected Doug Rafferty's remains to look like but he wasn't really prepared for what he saw. Somehow, his mind had formed an image of a mostly intact pilot, still strapped into his parachute, still looking like Doug Rafferty. Instead, he faced remains that didn't look like Doug at all. That didn't even look like a human being at all. He was looking at a pitifully small huddle of human bones and the remains of some fabric that had been a flight suit, some webbing that had been part of the parachute, and a pair of partially decayed boots.

Jim took a step back and turned toward the tree, taking deep breaths and trying to gain some semblance of a more appropriate reaction. Then he felt Pappy's hand on his shoulder. "Let's get him in a proper grave," he said. Turning to the others he added, "Casey, T.J., see if you can come up with a usable prop blade for a grave marker."

While they scrambled off, Jim and Anderson started working on digging a small grave in which to lay Doug Rafferty's remains to rest. Digging was easy because the ground was soft from the previous day and night's rain, and they soon had a reasonably large, oblong hole dug. Just as they were nearly done, Casey and T.J. also returned and brought with them what appeared to be a fully intact propeller blade with not a scratch or dent to it. Jim marveled at the fact that any part of the plane had survived so completely. They leaned it against a tree next to the grave site and then the group began to move Doug Rafferty's remains from the aircraft and placing them into the ground.

The process was as grisly as it was awkward, trying to scoop the bones, some of which still contained some bits of ligaments and meat, from the seat of the Corsair and moving them to the hole in the earth where they attempted to arrange them in a fashion that did not seem jumbled and disrespectful. Doc Cagney proved very helpful, being a medical man and having a matter-of-fact approach to the whole ordeal. It was him who reached down for the first parts and got them going. It was him, also, who picked up Rafferty's dog tags, still connected with the narrow strip of herringbone twill tape so many of them used instead of the metal chain they'd been issued.

When they had placed the last of the bones in the grave and begun to cover them up with fresh soil, Casey said, "I saw some white rocks down by the beach. We should get some of those to place around the grave. Make it look proper."

Jim nodded and the group took this as a cute to head off and select the cleanest, largest rocks they were able to find, while at the same time giving Gutterman a chance to say goodbye to Doug privately as he finished up the grave and patted down the loose soil on the small mound. _It isn't much, _he thought, _but it sure beats not having a grave at all._

Once they had finished placing rocks around the grave site and had placed the propeller at the head of it, it looked like a fairly proper burial place for a good pilot. Dog Cagney, who was handy with a paint brush, used the small can of paint Casey had brought with him to paint onto the grave marker, "1LT Doug Rafferty, 30 September 1943" in neat block letters. It seemed a fitting tribute to a fighter pilot, that propeller blade.

When Cagney had finished painting the letters, they all stood back and looked at the grave before them. One by one, they quietly saluted Doug Rafferty who had been, indeed, a hell of a lot more than _the bad luck guy _or Admiral Rafferty's son. It seemed like a pretty big deal that they had been able to get to this island to do this for Doug, to have a grave for him that was dug by friendly hands and to be able to lay his remains to rest with care. It was more than most fighter pilots got when they met their ends in this type of war, after all. Jim was sure that it would have met with Rafferty's approval.

Pappy, by way of eulogy, said, "So long, Doug."

...

* * *

**Author's Notes**

As with my previous Black Sheep Squadron fan fiction, I tried again to use historical fact as the basis for this story.

In this case, truth truly is stranger than fiction. Although it may seem far fetched that a group of pilots would take a PT boat to a nearby island to find the remains of one of their own, this actually happened. On December 5, 1943, a group of six members of the Black Sheep - Major Greg Boyington, flight surgeon James Reames, squadron intelligence officer Frank Walton, and pilots D.J. Moore, "Moon" Mullen, Bob McClurg and Burney Tucker - boarded a boat for Kolombangara island to recover the remains of pilot Bob Alexander who had crashed on September 30, 1943.

Frank Walton wrote to his wife, "We landed, looked around, and found the plane in a million pieces - and found the boy, too, his bones huddled up in a pitifully small pile. We scooped out a shallow grave, laid his remains in there, painted his name on one blade of his propeller, set it up as a head stone, carried some clean white rocks from the beach and put around it, stood and saluted and wished him well. What a hell of a place to die, 7000 miles from home on a god-forsaken, Jap infested island. (...) Somehow, we hope, his bones will rest more peacefully after having had a friendly hand lay them away! At least his father will know, too, that he's definitely gone and not live for years in a false hope that he'll turn up some day."

Pappy Boyington's eulogy to Bob Alexander is recorded in Bruce Gamble's book, "Swashbucklers and Black Sheep" as having been, "So long, Bob."

I just filled in the story and the characters from the television show. Doug Rafferty was in episode 05, "High Jinks", where much of the information about him and Gutterman and their complicated relationship came from. Doc Cagney turns up in episode 07, "Presumed Dead." He doesn't really play an important role in the story but since the original group included their doc, I wanted to include him.

...

Image credit: F4U Corsairs of the actual VMF-214, 1944. Public domain.


End file.
